Are any of the splits in the Laban groups particularly significant?
The largest group to undergo a split is San Lakas–PM. It has divided into two separate organised currents. One of these includes among its leaders, Sonny Melencio, who is fairly well-known in Australia, and it has just recently formed the Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM). The other organised current, which includes the San Lakas president, Wilson Fortaleza, organises through the PM and it retains the allegiance of the PM representative in the Philippines Congress. Most people on the left with whom I spoke said the two sides of the split have about equal numbers of activists. The lack of publications on the Philippines left makes it difficult, especially in just one short trip, to get a clear understanding of the political differences between those aligned with the PM and those aligned with the PLM. They seem to range across issues such as how to manage the relationship between party and mass organisations, the objective political situation (whether or not conditions exist to launch a strugg
